Unless that leap year doth combine,
And give to February twenty-nine.

BISHOP STILL, (JOHN).

1543-1607.

A Songe. (Gammer Gurton's Needle.) Act in. I cannot eat but little meat,

My stomach is not good;

But sure I think that I can drink
With any that wears a hood.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Old Tarlton's Song.

FROM THE PIGGES CORANTOE, 1642.

The King of France, with forty thousand men Went up a hill, and so came down again.

MARTYN PARKER.

Ye gentlemen of England

That live at home at ease,

Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.

Part ii. Book iv. Ch. 16.

Blessings on him who invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

1554-1586.

The Defence of Poesy.

He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.

I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglass, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.

Arcadia. Book i.

There is no man suddenly either excellently good, or extremely evil.

They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.

For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon

by them; but they are the money of fools.

FRANCIS BACON.

1561-1626.

Essay viii. Of Marriage and Single Life.

He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Essay 1. Of Studies.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

Histories make men wise, poets witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep, moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

THOMAS FULLER.

1608-1661.

Holy State. Book ii. Ch. 20.

The Good Sea-captain.

But our captain counts the image of God, nevertheless his image cut in ebony, as if done in ivory.

Book iii. Ch. 12. Of Natural Fools.

Their heads sometimes so little, that there is no more room for wit; sometimes so long, that there is no wit for so much room.

Book iii. Ch. 22. Of Marriage.

They that marry ancient people merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

Book iv. Ch. 13.

To smell a turf of fresh earth, is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality, cordial to the soul.

Andronicus. Ad. fin. 1.

Often the cockloft is empty, in those which Nature hath built many stories high.

ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN.

1653-1716.

From a Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earl of Rothes, etc.

I knew a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.

HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 1672-1751.

On the Study and Use of History. Letter 2

I have read somewhere or other, in Dionysius Halicarnassus, I think, that History is Philosophy teaching by examples.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

1706-1790.

Poor Richard.

God helps them that help themselves.

Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Three removes are as bad as a fire.

Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.

You pay too much for your whistle.

From a Letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley, on the Loss of her American Squirrel.

Here Skugg

Lies snug,

As a bug

In a rug.